Curated playlist
Former French colonies
- GrenadaGrenada put a nutmeg on its flag. The Caribbean island nation is nicknamed the Island of Spice.
- DominicaDominica has had no standing army since 1981, after two coup attempts. The mercenaries' ship never left dock.
- DjiboutiDjibouti, a tiny African country, has the United States, France, Japan and China all paying to keep soldiers there.
- Burkina FasoIn 1984, Captain Thomas Sankara renamed Upper Volta as Burkina Faso. The new name blends words from two local languages.
- HaitiHaiti is the only country in history established by a slave revolt.
- Mandate for Syria and the LebanonFrance split its Syria and Lebanon mandate into six states within months. The lines followed sectarian divisions.
- CambodiaCambodia's Tonle Sap lake swells to nearly ten times its dry-season size each year.
- French GuianaFrench Guiana, known as Guyane in French, is 98.9 percent forest, and much of that forest is primeval rainforest. Yet it is an overseas department and region of France, and its currency is the euro. It sits on the northern coast of South…
- RéunionRéunion holds the world records for the heaviest rainfall over periods of 12, 24, 72 and 96 hours, including 1.8 metres in 24 hours. This small island in the Indian Ocean lies about 679 km east of Madagascar and 175 km southwest of…
- Dominican RepublicThe Dominican Republic holds both the tallest mountain peak in the Caribbean and its lowest point. Pico Duarte rises 3098 metres above sea level, and snow has been seen on its summit on rare occasions. Lake Enriquillo, a salt lake, lies 45…
- Republic of the CongoThe Republic of the Congo lies on the western coast of Central Africa, just west of the Congo River, and its name causes confusion almost everywhere it goes. On the far bank of that river sits the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a…
- GabonGabon owes its name to a hooded cloak. The Portuguese word gabao, also spelled Gabão, means exactly that. In the 1470s, Portuguese navigators reached the estuary of the Komo River, also called the Como. They decided its outline resembled…
- MississippiMississippi was the fifth-wealthiest state before the Civil War. Today its per-capita income is the lowest.
- MadagascarMadagascar appears on a map drawn by Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154 under the name Gesira Malai, Arabic for Malay island. That is a strange label for a place off the southeastern coast of Africa. Today the Republic of Madagascar is the world's…
- Saint-DomingueBy 1789, the French colony of Saint-Domingue produced roughly half of Europe's and the Americas' sugar and coffee.
- LouisianaNapoleon sold all of Louisiana to the United States for less than three cents an acre.
- IllinoisOne border change in 1818 gave Illinois nearly 50 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline. Nathaniel Pope lobbied for it.
- French MadagascarIn 1885, Queen Ranavalona III signed a treaty making Madagascar a French protectorate. She had fought to prevent it.
- SeychellesSeychelles, a country of tropical islands scattered across the Indian Ocean, was almost seized by mercenaries in 1981. A team of 43 South African mercenaries, led by Mike Hoare, flew in disguised as holidaying rugby players. Their goal was…